and on top of the nurse. We pile in after him. The nurse thrashes on the tiled floor in her white overalls, screeching like a tram coming into a station. I pull a T-shirt from my bag and stuff it into her mouth. Abel holds her arms, and Quinn and Song stop her kicking.
Silas stands up and pokes her in the side with the toe of his shoe. “Tie her up,” he says. She continues to writhe. He roots in his bag and pulls out a T-shirt of his own that he rips into pieces. I quickly tie the ends of the fabric together and use them to bind the nurse’s hands and feet.
“Some of us should go and release the benefactors while you take care of her,” Abel says. “The nurses only check in when the oxygen levels change, so we have about twenty minutes.”
Silas thinks for a moment. “Where’s the air?” he asks. We can’t go anywhere if we don’t have a decent supply.
“There’s a room down the hall where they give the benefactors tanks and make them climb and run. Look in the closet. Here,” Abel says. He throws the keys to Silas and Silas pulls a handgun from the nurse’s belt and throws it to Abel.
And we’re off, Song, Abel, and I, hurtling along the hallway and leaving Silas and Quinn to deal with the nurse.
The room we enter is unlit apart from a thin moonbeam. Abel pulls out a flashlight, which he shines around the room. It’s the same ward I saw yesterday, beds along each side and people tied to them. The machines by the beds hiss and beep.
“Over there,” Abel says, aiming the light at the far corner of the room. “Jo!” He goes to her, shakes her awake, and unfastens her wrists and ankles. He pulls the tubes from her mouth and nose, then looks down at the IV in her hand.
“I can take it out,” I say, pushing him aside. I’ve never done anything like this, but I know what Abel’s hesitations have led to before. I put pressure on the needle and slide it from her hand. She squeaks. She points to her mouth and gasps and Abel puts his own facemask over her mouth to help her breathe.
“You came,” she says, pushing the mask away. She hasn’t had the baby yet; they’re experimenting on her while she’s pregnant.
I’m about to unbuckle the benefactor in the bed next to Jo’s when Maude pipes up. “You took your sweet time. I’ve probably got bedsores on me bum. Untie me. Hurry up!”
She isn’t wearing shoes and throws off a surgical robe revealing her emaciated, naked body. “Where are your clothes?” I ask. She points to a bin in the corner of the room brimming with rags. I help her up, pull out the tubes and IVs, and she hobbles over to the bin and scrambles into an outfit that looks far too big for her. Within a minute, two more benefactors are next to her doing the same thing.
I go from bed to bed, unbuckling scrawny ankles and wrists and pulling out tubes. “Quicker!” Abel says.
Silas barges in holding a bawling toddler, its mouth a perfect ring of noise. Abel groans. “Shut. Her. Up.” If the situation weren’t so serious, his nerves would be comical.
“
“There aren’t that many of them,” Silas says.
“Did you find the tanks?” I ask.
“Quinn’s sorting that out,” he says.
Abel scratches his eyebrows as the baby continues to bawl. The cry wheels around the room like a security alarm. Silas tries to cover the baby’s mouth.
Jo is sitting on the end of a bed near the door rubbing her belly. She reaches out her arms and Silas hands her the baby he’s holding. Looking at them, I’m struck by the hopelessness of the situation. How will we care for infants? How will Jo crawl under the wall and away with her large belly, and who’s going to deliver her baby when the time comes? None of us are doctors. We aren’t even proper adults. She looks at Abel and rocks the baby. We aren’t on the run yet, and I feel defeated.
“Show me the nursery,” Maude says to Silas, and that’s when I remember she was training to be a nurse. After everything I’ve felt about Maude, could she be our one hope? “The rest of you, keep releasing these ones,” she says, and they leave.
We release the remaining benefactors as fast as we can. Most sit up and get dressed, but a few refuse to stir, the whites of their eyes glowing. And we haven’t time to convince them to leave.
“Help us,” Silas says, darting back into the room carrying a child in each arm. Bruce seizes a sleeping girl from Silas. The rest of us tear toward the nursery and carry off a child apiece. Abel meets us in the hallway with a gaggle of children ranging from about four to eight. Their eyes are wide. “We’re saving you, okay?” I say, using a gentle voice. They nod, but they still look frightened.
Within minutes we’re with the duty nurse, who is attempting to wriggle away. Some of the benefactors kick her, then choose an airtank from the floor where Quinn has piled them. Bruce has put down the toddler he was carrying and has a stack of sheets in his arms instead. He throws them next to the airtanks. He folds his and shows us how to make a sling. “Take one to carry the little ’uns,” he says.
Maude is the only one of us not carrying a child. She chose to stock up on diapers, feeding formula, spoons, and bowls instead. She jangles when she runs, and a peculiar flood of true affection for the old woman washes through me.
I push open the main doors with my hip, carrying a toddler in my sling at the front. And out of the shadows, Dorian appears.
Without a word, Silas takes a swing at Dorian. Apart from the thud of Dorian hitting the ground, it’s silent —all the children and benefactors look on in wonderment.
“Silas, what’s wrong with you?” Song hisses.
“Where have you been?” Silas demands.
Dorian struggles to his feet and uses Quinn as a crutch.
“I heard a ruckus outside my room. Maks is rounding up troopers, but I don’t think they know you came here.”
“You didn’t meet us like we planned,” I say.
“Juno wouldn’t go to sleep,” he says. I’m not sure I believe him. But he’s here now.
“Can we make it out in time?” Song asks no one in particular.
I look at the benefactors we’ve released. They’re wearing facemasks, and look frighteningly similar to an army of zombies. “They’ll expect us to use the front gate and go north like everyone does,” Abel says. “They won’t suspect the back wall.”
And we’re off again.
I wait until last, following the benefactors along the wall that separates Sequoia from the world. The baby in my arms giggles, tipping her head back and looking up at the stars. Thankfully none of the babies are crying.
We reach the back wall and edge along that, too. The benefactor in front of me stops, and I bump into her. But no sooner have we stopped than we’re moving forward again slowly as our group slides through the hole one by one. And then it’s just Silas and me staring at the tunnel burrowed beneath the wall. He takes the child from me, putting her on her tummy in the dip and letting whoever is on the other side pull her through. “Is this crazy?” I ask Silas. His expression is hard and before he has a chance to answer, floodlights illuminate Sequoia and an alarm blasts out. The ground vibrates under the force of marching troopers. Silas pushes me to my knees, and I slink under the wall and out.
“Hurry!” I say, breathing in freedom. And as I sidestep the junk and crawl down a shallow ravine to fetch Crab’s airtank, I can’t help watching the frail figures of benefactors and children smearing the wasteland and wondering how long until our oxygen expires—or we get caught.
PART IV
THE RETURN
